Mary Kunz Goldman is the classical music critic for The Buffalo News, the daily paper of Buffalo, N.Y. She is also the authorized biographer of the great American pianist Leonard Pennario.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Mozart mania

Here is a cartoon about Mozart's Piano Sonata K. 545. Someone posted it on a piano discussion group on the Internet that I look in on now and then. I think I have watched it 10 times.

Today's picture, by the way, comes from a dandy site devoted to Mozart portraits. Can any other composer claim a site like that? I ask you.

You can waste hours on that site and I love to do that.

I am funny about Mozart. I do not mind joking around about him but I do not like it when people turn him into a joke. Maybe that's because when I was growing up he was still suffering from those misconceptions that his music was "elegant" and that was it. And that he was this perpetual child. That was not true!

Around that time certain musical groups would hold these Mozart birthday celebrations that would get wild and silly. People would be running around the room yelling stuff about "Wolfie." God, I hated that.

But I am no prude! I do love joking around about Mozart, as long as it is in the right spirit and not ignorant or annoying.